Havens Hospices is an Essex-based charity providing specialist care and support to patients and their loved ones at the end of their lives. The charity is only able to provide this hugely important service through the generosity of supporters who donate time, money and goods to the charity.

Joining the charity nine years ago, CEO Trevor Johnson has seen first-hand how migrating from Cybertill to Nisyst’s CHARiot EPoS system has helped each and every one of Havens Hospices’ 23 charity retail outlets to run more efficiently and generate more funds for the charity.

“When we first worked with Nisyst in November 2017, our retail hardware was beginning to reach the point of needing replaced,” Trevor explained. “Whether we changed our provider or not, it was a prudent process to review what was out there. We realised quickly we no longer wanted to use Cybertill as it was entirely cloud based and we were completely vulnerable to the internet connection which wasn’t always reliable in many of our shops.”

Havens Hospices narrowed their choice to between two contenders, one of which was Nisyst. “The level of first-line support and Nisyst’s proven track record in migrating several charities from Cybertill made them the clear preferred choice,” Trevor continued. “Nisyst’s plan to roll out their CHARiot EPoS system was very comprehensive and there weren’t any hidden costs.”

Once Nisyst was brought on board, members of Trevor’s team treated the new system with scepticism, not believing that a Gift Aid donation could be processed in just ‘4 clicks’. “In the past, processing Gift Aid was hugely time consuming for our staff and volunteers,” Trevor said. “Even though we knew Nisyst’s new systems would make this process more efficient and reliable, many of our volunteers raised concerns about the changes. Within a week, our volunteers said it was the best thing we’d ever done for the charity. The new Gift Aid process with full scan code in particular has been a game changer for us.”

The migration itself proved to be a seamless process for Havens Hospices where any issues were ironed out and the Nisyst Helpdesk team were on hand to provide support and guidance to anyone who needed it.

Now, the charity is really feeling the benefits. “Nisyst’s reliability has been a real core benefit,” Trevor added. “They even examined our old ‘legacy’ hardware and found a way to make our old hardware work with the new which created a cost saving for us. Their honesty has been refreshing and a welcome contrast to most software providers who are looking at how much they can sell you. Nisyst consider how they can help your organisation first and they’ve certainly helped us.”

Need a copy of this case study to download and share? Click here